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Topic: Sourdough starter (Read 13228 times)

I recently went through my cookbooks, well baking books I should say, and came across a book that I have completely forgotten about.

It's called "The Neighborhood Bake Shop" by Jill van Cleave from 1997. I was ultimately looking for a ciabatta bread recipe and when flipping through the pages I found a sourdough starter recipe that was intriguing. It uses seedless raisins, sugar and bottled water to get the fermentation going before the actual feeding stage begins. The first stage takes 7 days so I started on Sunday.

And today, on Wednesday, it looks like the fermentation kicked into a higher gear. Bubbles have formed, the plastic foil sports a dome-shaped top and you can smell the aroma through the plastic.

Very cool indeed. When I was researching how to make SD starters, I did read that you can put a couple of raisens, grapes, plum peel, orange rind, etc as many fruits carry yeast on their skins. I did not do that when making my SD starter, but this is very interesting. Looking forward to seeing the results.

Yesterday, after a 7 day fermentation time of the raisins, I finally got around to making a natural, wild yeast sourdough starter.

First off, the smell was amazing. The fermented raisins had a very strong smell of wine, were all bubbly and the entire bowl was alive it seemed. I lined a strainer with a damp cheesecloth, put it over a glass bowl and drained the raisins, squeezed out all the liquid and discarded them. The remaining liquid had some sediment on the bottom and was brown in color. I wish I could have taken pics but had to get some new batteries, hence no pics of the drained raisins and liquid.

I stirred in one cup of Stone Buhr BF, formed it into a loose dough, covered it with plastic wrap for 12 hrs and let it sit in a warm spot. This morning I fed it again with 1/2 cup lukewarm water and a another cup of flour. The next feeding is tonight.

So far it has the typical smell of sourdough, almost comparable to our San Francisco Sourdough bread. I'm anxious to see how a pizza dough smells and tastes like with the added starter once its fully active.

Some pics...you can see the orange color of the starter after the first feeding due to the brown liquid. After the second feeding this morning, it started to become lighter in color.

Mike very cool and fun project. I'm anxious to hear more about the results compared to your other starters. You have motivated me to think outside the box and I've started feeding my starter with beer. So far it had changed the toughness of the starter and it smells of beer rather than a yeasty SD.

I also have several boxes of Cali raisens and have half a mind to start a new culture. Will wait for your pizza results.

In regards to starters, I have so far used only two and one of them only half-heartedly because it was also a natural starter but made only from flour and water. That was when I first started out. The other one was the Ischia starter and I still have that one laying dormant, but healthy, in the fridge.

I just checked the SD starter and it's bubbling away nicely. The smell's just great. Will feed it again tonight.

My raisen starter is super bubbly just after 4 days. The plastic on top is domed as in your pictures and it does smell very sweet right through the plastic wrap. I'm being impatient and not sure I can hold off feeding it for 3 more days.

My raisen starter is super bubbly just after 4 days. The plastic on top is domed as in your pictures and it does smell very sweet right through the plastic wrap. I'm being impatient and not sure I can hold off feeding it for 3 more days.

TM,

You got to wait!

Patience is a virtue but trust me you will be rewarded if you wait. What you can do, if the top will become too large (and it will), take a thin, small needle and poke a tiny hole just around the edge of the bowl where the wrap touches the rim. It'll release some of the gases but will still maintain a fairly tight seal. Plus, you can "smell" the progress.

I'm so darn impatient but you're right Mike. LOL, a few of the raisens have swelled up from the gas build up, they look like they are gonna pop. My wife saw it on the counter this morning and said, "What's with the science project with the beans?".

I'm so darn impatient but you're right Mike. LOL, a few of the raisens have swelled up from the gas build up, they look like they are gonna pop. My wife saw it on the counter this morning and said, "What's with the science project with the beans?".

At least she didn't toss it in the garbage!! I have had people throw out things just because they did not know what they were and it drives me crazy. I would absolutely lose my mind if someone tossed out a sourdough culture that I was working on,

I had a cook (A great cook) that worked for me that had some OCD issues, and he would go on these cleaning jags once in a while, of course this behavior would never happen at the end of the shift, or in the downtime, he would start tearing apart coolers and cooking equipment in the middle of a dinner rush! I think stress would send him into this obsessive compulsive behavior.

Well anyways, after the 3rd time that he tossed my creme-fraiche in the garbage in a month, I had endured enough and I yelled at him, so what does he do next? He decides it would be a good time to drain and strain the deep-fryers! right during our busiest time! He got sent home that night, and I refused to let him back in my kitchen until his meds were adjusted better to keep him on a more even keel so this crap would not happen anymore.In the past he has tossed our Beurre Blanc, and hollandaise based sauces right in the middle of service because of his disorder. Imagine trying to make either of those sauces during a rush because one of your cooks tossed them in the garbage when there was nothing wrong with them.I love having a clean-freak on my crew, but someone that can control it a little better so they are cleaning during down times, not in the middle of dinner service.

Why is it that some of the best cooks are absolute nutcakes, or have substance abuse issues? Or both?

I was just gonna post about it. I fed it 2 hours early cuz I gotta goto work early tomorrow. The liquid smells really STRONG like moonshine (white lightening)! I'm very excited to make pizza with it. I hope it outshines my old starter.

GotRocks, you are very patient. I would have been so pissed and probably fired him on the first offense. During rush hour traffic? What is he crazy? Well, I guess he is. Good cooks are hard to come by I'm sure. I would make sure he understands NEVER to throw anything away without asking first.

Well Mikey, I just came home from dinner. It has been about 3 hours since the first feeding and this sucka has DOUBLED in volume. I took a whiff and nearly passed out. This thing must be 100 proof! If I didn't know any better, I'd say it's ready to be used now. I'll stick to the feeding regimen though. I can see why you say it has excellent leavening power. To me, it smells even more alcoholic than it did before feeding. Looking forward to trying it out.

Well Mikey, I just came home from dinner. It has been about 3 hours since the first feeding and this sucka has DOUBLED in volume. I took a whiff and nearly passed out. This thing must be 100 proof! If I didn't know any better, I'd say it's ready to be used now. I'll stick to the feeding regimen though. I can see why you say it has excellent leavening power. To me, it smells even more alcoholic than it did before feeding. Looking forward to trying it out.

TM,

Can you say "Moonshine" pizza?? Hey, that might a new business niche, come to think of it...

I can already see the business sign "Tranman's Moonshine Pies"

Yes, the smell's strong but it'll balance itself out after some feedings. The leaving power is great, though. I noticed that it also provides nice coloration to the crusts I've made so far without adding a whole lot of sugar or honey. Plus, watch the oven spring when you make your first pie.

Overall, it makes for some great pies. But what about taking some pics of your starter?

Just stick with the feeding regimen and you'll be all set. Make sure, though, you feed it with the same flour. It looks like the yeast is going to work in full force. In regards to the color, that yellow tint will fade and turn into a nice beige and healthy color together with the smell.

What I am stoked about it is that it adds a great touch to a pizza crust. The SD starter gives the crust some really nice characteristics.

And even IF you should contaminate the starter somehow, it's always easy to make a new batch.

Have fun with it and keep us posted. Okay, back to the Sharks - Avalanche hockey game

Oh, and make sure you keep us posted and post pics of your upcoming pies!

Will do will do. I'm glad you posted this starter up as I needed a new project and a different starter. Already I can tell this starter and GotRocks Starter he sent me are behaving very differently than my original starter after feeding. The structure of the dough with these 2 yeast cultures seem to display bigger and more varying shaped airbubbles compare to my original starter which seems to have a more uniform structure.

It's really perfect timing as I wanted to get back into experimenting with higher % of preferment and nearlypolitan pies.

Essen,You stated you see good browning characteristics with sourdoughs?I recognize the opposite, I find that my sourdough breads are very difficult to get a golden brown coloring in them.

That is why I thought the dough would be perfect for a high-heat situation like a WFO running at 900+ degrees, the crust would not burn like typical bread flours burn.

There might be a difference when it comes to baking bread.

The observations I had in terms of pizza is that it did actually improve the crust coloration without adding a more additional sugar than the amount what I normally use. I had problems with the coloration for quite some time as I stated and tried to figure out in my NY-style project thread. At first I thought it was my oven but now with the addition of the starter things seem to improve.

Don't ask me why because I'm not a scientist

However, I'm anxious to see if Tranman's pies will show the same thing.